Flying Staff

The future of sport aviation has arrived, but what does it mean to you? After more than a decade of work on them, the FAA has finally published the Sport Pilot and Light Sport Aircraft rules. It’s great news for the EAA and other organizations that have championed the new rules. But, what now? By […]

Win a Surefire FlashlightSurefire’s Cool LED L1 Flashlight Can be Yours for FreeWin an LED Flashlight from SureFire Get a chance to win a SureFire L1 LED flashlight by entering our giveaway on www.flyingmag.com. No purchase is necessary, and the official rules can be found on the site. A standout in a lineup of cool, […]

Francis Melvin Rogallo is now known for the eponymous double-conical hang-glider wings that he developed for NASA in the 1960s. Long before that, and before NASA even came into being, he worked for the sainted National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics-NACA-and in the late 1930s conducted a wind-tunnel study of inlet and outlet designs. From this […]

Taxpayers pick up the tab for the FSS briefer to read you forecasts and weather reports prepared by the government’s weather bureau. It’s a great service that pilots have enjoyed for decades, but if you are willing to invest a few bucks a month, you can buy better weather, or at least better weather information, […]

Last year when a Citation II on approach to Amsterdam flew through tennis-ball sized hail at 10,000 feet and 250 knots, it emerged, as one might guess, far worse for the wear. As you can see here, the encounter caused heavy damage to the airplane’s nose, wiping out the radome. Also visible on the nose […]

A few things in this life are so fundamentally compelling that despite months of planning and anticipation the event itself is so overwhelming, so captivating, that memories become a blended blur of the real and the imagined. Having a child is such an experience. So is taking off in a brand new Boeing 737-700. Last […]

Text and Photography by Robert Goyer When Cirrus announced its latest single, the SR22-G2, the company from the get-go stressed that many of the changes were more than skin deep. While Cirrus pilots were excited about the claimed increase in cruise speed, their mechanics were equally psyched about the easier maintainability of the airplane, which […]